The Week In Music with David P. Weber

Bob Dylan’s ‘worst ever’ album, Self Portrait, has now been released as a
multi-disc set.

This may seem at least incongruous, and in the extreme;
money-grubbing.

The original LP has only improved with
age to the extent that it’s out of its context, following a run of classic
Dylan albums (if you include the divisive but extremely popular Nashville
Skyline).

The original album is only available in remastered
form in the deluxe box, which also features the entire Isle Of Wight gig with
The Band, an fab set that should have got official release back in the day
(it’s been widely bootlegged).

The more widely distributed package in this latest
Bootleg Series boasts the demos, different versions, off-cuts and
try-outs which were cut to tape during the sessions that formed the cores of
Self Portrait and New Morning.

When Self Portrait was reviewed on release in 1970, it
was famously greeted by Greil Marcus of Rolling Stone with “What is this shit?”

The review needs to be seen in context, of course.

Dylan took folk music to a bigger audience than its
adherents had dreamed of, writing protest songs which soundtracked marches,
sit-ins and even riots.

But his personal and artistic interests became more personal and even prosaic, telling his audience 'It Ain't Me Babe'.

Then he angered a hell of a lot of people by rocking out.

Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and singles like 'Mr Tambourine Man', ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, and ‘Positively
Fourth Street’ changed the face of rock.

Blonde On Blonde is probably still the greatest double
album ever made.

It preceded a back to basics enterprise with country
overtones on John Wesley Harding—which intentionally flew in the face of epic,
‘going one better’ albums from The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The
Rolling Stones and so on.

As violence was seemingly reaching some kind of ugly peak in the
world's declared and undeclared wars, and in western sphere protests, Dylan had chosen to sit on the white picket fence.

Nashville Skyline did, however, become a massive seller.

As a Dylan fan of several decades, I must say I had a
blind spot for Self Portrait.

Its poor reputation had stopped me from listening to it at all.

Having had endured some of the flawed Dylan albums
already—Saved, Empire Burlesque, Knocked Out Loaded, Down In The Groove, Under
The Red Sky—my patience didn’t extend to a double album of “shit”.

From this distance, Self Portrait may have made a
pretty good single LP.

By Dylan’s own
admission, he “threw everything I could think of at the wall and whatever
stuck, released it”.

He released what 'didn't stick' too.

Those caveats came later-- there are many accounts that he was hurt by the virulent criticism that greeted his second double LP.

Label mogul and industry legend Clive Davis recently
wrote that Dylan was “stung”.

He wrote “at no time was he as ironic about it as he
would suggest in later years”.

Davis also said he had The Byrds lined up for sessions
and when they inexplicably left town on the scheduled date, Dylan was furious.

As well he would’ve been, considering how important his
songs were to The Byrds’ career—like, essential!

In 1984, Dylan said his attitude prior to Self
Portrait was “I wanna do something they can’t possibly like, they can’t
relate to” but the idea backfired because his fans got resentful.

After that claim, he started saying Self Portrait was his own
attempt at a bootleg.

For him to suggest he wasn’t totally sincere at the time
is a bit hard to take when you can hear commitment and passion in many of the
tracks, missteps though they were.

To have more than 50 musicians, including Dylan, make a
bad album on purpose spreads the level of disrespect.

So it’s not as if there was intention here.

Basically the LP is juxtaposed between Dylan’s attempts
at a commercial country, folk field recordings, covers and live tracks from The Isle Of Wight performance.

Let’s start with the real rubbish.

The album starts alarmingly.

On ‘All The Tired Horses’, Dylan can’t be heard at all,
he’s replaced by a troop of ladies atop some Nashville sugary strings wailing on about how hard it is to get some "riding" (writing?) done.

‘I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know’ is in the same
sweet vein, and is a chore, and should’ve been left to The Davis Sisters.

‘Days Of '49’ is delivered passionately and is
rootsier, if pretty dirgey.

The first tribute to Clarence Ashley, ‘In Search Of
Little Sadie’ sounds as if Dylan is in search of the melody line.

It’s known that many of these vocal takes were firsts,
suggesting there was a 'who cares' attitude at play.

‘In Search Of Little Sadie’ verges on parody.

This far in, you can put your mind into that of a Dylan fan
who’d stayed the course during the 1960s-- you can imagine them screwing up their nose, if not
ripping the record off the player and throwing it at the wall.

Dylan’s version of the much-covered ‘Let It Be Me’
induces sleep.

Boudleaux Bryant’s ‘Take Me As I Am’ carries that
string-laden sound to a new degree of pain.

It's a song that was already much covered.. so why bother?

Also in the 'why bother' category is ‘Blue Moon’, and ‘The
Boxer’.

Dylan's rendition of the first tune was treated as a joke at the time-- the latter tune represents a colossal lost
opportunity.

If Dylan had done it straight, it would’ve been great.

Yet he double-tracks his own voice, slightly out of sync, as if taking the piss
out of the crystal clear harmony work of Simon & Garfunkel.

Dylan at least seems committed to ‘Copper Kettle’, which is ruined
again by poor production choices.

‘It Hurts Me Too’ is a pale imitation.

The traditional ‘Belle Isle’ is reminiscent of ‘My Back
Pages’, and it’s hard to know what to think as it's drowned by more overbearing production.

‘Wigwam’ is a horribly overblown coda, preceding a second
go at the traditional ‘Alberta’.

The case for the defence starts with ‘Alberta’, here
given a ‘#1’, which is the second track on the double LP.

The second Clarence Ashley tribute, ‘Little Sadie’ is an
offhand cracker, chugging along nicely and making the first one totally
unnecessary.

‘Woogie Boogie’ is a bog standard jam if quite fun and as such, is a keeper.

‘Living The Blues’ is another country thing and too
nasally to love, yet should stay.

‘Gotta Travel On’ is a wonderful tune done well.

‘Take A Message To Mary’ is another Boudleaux Bryant song
and constitutes an interesting if trite take on a western hero theme.

All of the live songs are from The Isle Of Wight gig and
are pretty good, although as the whole live disc shows clearly, there were better
songs to put on Self Portrait.

Perversity.

The thing is, with Dylan, he’d be just as likely to leave
off the good stuff and put out the pedestrian.

His history is littered with perversity—‘Blind Willie
McTell’ and ‘Foot Of Pride’ omitted from Infidels, ‘Series Of Dreams’ left off
Oh Mercy, and ‘Joey’ being so long that it mars the otherwise awesome Desire.

It is noteworthy that with the essays that accompany the
latest release (one from Greil Marcus), there’s no serious attempt to claim the
original Self Portrait is now some kind of lost classic.

Ryan Adams is one muso who reportedly still rates it
highly, however, he was probably having a lend of the interviewer.

Those writing about the latest multi-format release are
much more enthused about the new, unheard material.

These mythical songs have been written about in some
detail decades ago by Clinton Heylin, who revealed truths about many of the
songs released now, as well as a few yet to (legitimately) see the light of
day.

It is an absolute treasure trove.

There are rawer, better versions of songs which were
sweetened up with overdubs.

There are completely alternate versions, like the
startlingly lovely ‘Went To See The Gypsy’ with guitarist David Bromberg in a
more ethereal take, better than the one on New Morning.

There’s a whole LP’s worth of top stuff, easily.

Crawdaddy magazine founder, the late Paul Williams had a
reputation for loving nearly everything Dylan did—even he couldn’t find a soft
spot for Self Portrait, except maybe at the bottom of a pile of something.

And of this period, Paul Williams wrote (20 years
later)...

“It’s possible, I know, that Dylan like Picasso may turn
out to have a treasure trove of unseen, unheard major works that he’s kept for
himself- and if so, a very different history of this period in Dylan’s artistic
career may someday be written”.

In this he was absolutely right.

Many of these great tracks are with Dave Bromberg on
guitar and Al Kooper on keyboards and/or piano.

Kooper was known for bemoaning Dylan's career decisions during this time.

Interestingly, in his autobiography, Kooper writes
freely of his ordeals surrounding New Morning, but nothing much of these earlier
sessions.

Stu Woods played bass and Alvin Rogers played drums but
they can’t always be heard, and there were some backing singers along as well.

The songs without overdubs, ‘Belle Isle’, ‘Copper
Kettle’, and ‘Days Of ‘49’ are compelling.

There’s ‘Only A Hobo’, which he first recorded ahead of
his third LP and which Rod Stewart did so effectively.

The gorgeous ‘Pretty Saro’ boasts one of Dylan’s greatest
vocal performances of the period.

And until now, it’s been unavailable to the wider public.

On disc one of the extras, tracks 11 through to 14 are
extraordinarily good.

The rolling ‘Railroad Bill’ is a knockout, facilitated
by Bromberg’s guitar, and should have been a side closer on Self Portrait.